Analysis: A pro-gay Catholic Church leader? Don’t get your Popes up

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If their views are going to remain outdated, then it’s a shame the position of Pope can’t be scrapped as it offers nothing that is actually relevant. It will find itself way on the wrong side of history soon enough.

In the absence of a more liberal Pope, I hope the next one is even more reactionary and conservative than Ratzinger (not that I can easily imagine what that would look like), driving further nails into this dreadful, corrupt organisation. Even though Ratzinger has resigned, I do hope the Vatican continues with its ritual of banging his head in with a hammer when he eventually dies…..It’s what he deserves, after all…

Nothing will change. More of the same anti-gay bigotry, anti-abortion nonsense. The only way they could get change is if all of those catholic priests supporting gay people, female clergy and birth control would come out in protest. I’m sure there are tens of thousands of them scattered around the world. I’m surprised the Jesuits haven’t taken a stand.

Surely an OTT reaction, Dee? “The most evil of all time”? There is no doubt in my mind that the hierarchy (leadership) of the Catholic Church is wrong about homosexuality and about most other matters concerned with sex. And that it was wrong in the past about heresy (burning heretics) and probably a good many other things too. But that does not make it evil. What I want now, as a Catholic gay, is a thorough reformation of the Church’s doctrines and practices. I want the cardinals to elect a new Pope who will initiate that, even though I realise that it is highly unlikely. But then, being religious has always meant believing in the miraculous.

That lot got the idea they could rule the roost back around the dark ages and they still haven’t realised they are a irrelevant spent force now. The sooner the whole cesspit is abolished the better for mankind in general

You should check your facts before sprouting such nonsense. Being German doesn’t make him an Nazi, he was conscripted into the Hitler Youth and the Wehrmacht, deserted and interned as a POW.
I do not like him either, but my reasons for that are based on his positions, not some unchecked preconceptions.

Ann, See where you’re coming from, but I wasn’t referring to his youth – I’d semi-forgotten about that, I was thinking of his behavior; authoritarian, murderous, criminal, egregious, a hater, crimes against humanity .. type of thing. As far as I’m concerned he is all these. I think his most serious crime is actively working to prevent the use of condoms in Africa, spreading lies about them, and the resulting millions of deaths attributable to him – crimes against humanity. Africa has by far the latest number of HIV cases by a long shot, and a lot of it is down to Christianity, and in particular The Pope. He’s also been responsible for many LGBT deaths by spreading homophobia, opposing all sorts of support groups, opposing human and civil rights, working to demonise the entire gay community. He was directly involved in the child abuse scandal and how he survived all this time is a complete mystery. He’s vain, arrogant, ignorant and feeble-minded and delusional.

I agree,
He cannot be held to have been a Nazi; he was a mere child.
All these people who harp on and on about his Nazism are wasting their time.
What can most definitely be ascribed to him and of far later and greater importance than any juvenile lapse from the 1930’s is his 1986 statement that I am ‘intrinsically morally disordered’ in my homosexuality; which declaration was further clarified by his good self when he said in 1992, extending his earlier pronouncement to civil law, that ‘sexual orientation is not equivalent to race or gender and thus it is not unjust discrimination to take sexual orientation into account’
His Nazism, if that is what it was, is to some extent understandable.
His later dogma is not.

I would make a great pro-gay pope, but sending in my CV will be a waste of time. Most of the cardinals electing the new one were appointed by the present pope, so chances of an enlightened pope are nil. We can only hope the self-destruction of the Vatican will continue.

Is the Roman Catholic Church consciously trying to be as extreme as Islam?

It is becoming more absurdly far-right by the day and yet its followers appear to be becoming more obedient at the same time – e.g. Sarah Teather et. al.

The organisation deserves as much disgust from the wider-UK public as Islam gets, but unfortunately its brand of extremism is actually widely accepted in this country, due of course to it having been around for much longer. Actually, it’s more accepted than ever as Jacob Rees-Mogg would have once been treated as an outcast for saying that he “takes his whip” from the Vatican.

Why are so many heterosexuals so gullible and easily led by religious extremism, even when the ones doing the leading have been busy molesting their children? Is it because religious extremism fights to retain heterosexuals’ superiority in society?

The Catholic church is laughing stock. Most of my friends/relatives are athiest/agnostic. I hope the next Pope is even more homophobic, sexist and covers up child rape, then hopefully this sick religion continues to die the death it deserves.

Most of the popes dont hold the view that God allows Homosexuality let alone same sex marriages.( reason they have gone away from the tradition of the RC church and also from a bible perspective they are stuck under the Law ( Old Testement) . As Christians we are to remain under the New Dispensation ( New Testement ) where we can see properly

Keep the bigoted Popes coming. It only adds more damage to an already dying religion.
The less religion in society, in my view, the better.
Faith if you have one, should be a private matter. Not a force in politics and society.

I’m hoping the next Pope is someone who can focus on social justice and not become obsessed with sexual politics. Yes, the Papabiles, all ordained it seemed by Benedict himself, are all hardline conservatives. I hope, though, that there will be a ‘U turn’ as there has been before- John Paul II was not expected to become Pope at all. Peace and love! Xx

It’s ansolutely essential to read the article in Wikipedia “On the Pastoral Treatment of Homosexual Persons” authored by a certain Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger later to become Pope Benedict XVI.

In this discussion paper (which I contend was written as a politically self-seeking treatise by that evil man) it is actually stated that homosexuality cannot be regarded as a sin in the Catholic Church if the homosexual was not acting on a lifestyle choice but was behaving according to his or her intrinsic nature.

The reason I say that this was politically self-seeking was that this was clearly aimed at raising his profile in the College of Cardinals so that he would be seen as “Primus Inter Pares” (First Amongst Equals) and therefore likely to be elected as Pontiff. He pulled the wool over the eyes of the incumbent Pope (the poor John Paul from Poland) and the entire Catholic Church which must have imagined it was getting an up-to-date radical instead of an evil, pedophile-saving Nazi.

While we are glad to see the back of Pope Benedict XVI, I cannot help thinking that ‘Better the Devil You Know’ comes to mind here when you consider the shower of poo waiting in the wings to succeed him. If Benedict XVI was God’s Rottweiler, then bookies’ favourite, Ghanan priest, Peter Turkson would become God’s Pit Bull With Rabies if he becomes Pope in view of his support for the disgusting Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Perhaps the best of this bad lot is Cardinal Óscar Andrés Rodríguez from South America where gay marriage is becoming a reality. Until the white smoke rises from the Vatican then we will not know who will be the next Pope. For those who hope that another hard line Pope will drive more people away from the Catholic Church, don’t get your hope up too high. Muslims are hardly leaving their faith in droves because of their extremist preachers.